I have built myself a mini-itx system which is fanless. The only noise is the hard drive which I am looking into ways of silencing.

There is a SilentDrive enclosure which takes a 3.5in drive and then fits into a 5.25in bay. Unfortunately my mini-itx case is not big enough for a 5.25in bay so instead I was thinking - is there a similar product that takes a 2.5in drive and fits into a 3.5in bay ?

If so, could you give me the manufacturer and product name so that I can search for it in the uk.

You pay huge penalties with 2.5" drives -- price, performance. And they're not as quiet as the quietest 3.5" drives. I think the best you can do is to decouple mount the drive. That will get rid of most of the noise -- if you have a single-platter Seagate Barracuda IV or V. There may be other HDs about as quiet, but no broad consensus as yet.

As for performance of HD - I am not that bothered. This is a mini-itx system that will be used mainly as a dvd/divx/mp3 player.

Only size and noise are important. Achieved the size side of it - very small system. Noise has been achieved reasonably well - completely fanless with external PSU - its just the HD (IBM Deskstar 120GXP 120Gb). It sounds a bit like a fan and isnt loud but I was hoping for silence.

The only reason it is so big capacity is that I was planning in the near future of adding a ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder VE card (fanless card) and using the box as a TV recorder etc.

Check out reviews of the NoVibesIII and the way the drive is mounted in the ARM Stealth 2000+ system. Also the elastic suspension article in mods/projects. They may not all be feasible for you, but you'll get the idea. Also a Barracuda single platter drive will be at least 10 dBA quieter than your IBM, esp. when decoupled.

Look at SPCR website where you will find reviews of "NoVibes III" and many "mods and projects" related to decoupling. Decoupling removes the hard drive from its cage, in effect which significantly reduces vibrations that would normally occur. Check out the main site for more details, very very interesting articles should be read first.

Thanks for your help guys. Unfortunately I dont have the space inside this case to decouple the drive. This is a Cubid 2688R mini-itx case - it only just fits a 3.5in drive.

Its a shame as it is the only noisey component - well apart from the Toshiba slimline DVD drive but that is another story.

Another option I was thinking of is using a DOC - Disk On Chip. The MB has a socket for a 32pin flash disk up to 288Mb. But what OS would fit on it ? XP wont (what I am using currently) as it takes up over a gig. I would then not use a HD at all and just run DVD/Divx/mp3 off CD. But then I cant use it as a TV recorder which I might do in the future.

u could maybe use some foam or speaker wadding, i maybe able to mold u some deflex, big maybe, its a messy process and id want money for it..
decoupling is basicaly where u dont hard mount it, ie hard mount is screwed in, decoupled is hanging/suspended. i used blowhole trim on my maxtor, that has helped. mainly the grrrrrnnnnnrr chuggy noise i think, whiny noise is still there
hope this helps
u maybe able to sell ya hd and get a seagate or sumin
www.kustompcs.co.uk have a cf/ide adapter i think
30quid tho deflex is like soft rubber btw, u can change hardness via ratios when u mix,

http://www.overclockers.com/tips774/ maybe you could do something like this with your 3.5" bay, I've seen ppl cut out the only 3.5" bay in their SFF PC and mount it on cut up credit cards.
And with the Compact Flash IDE converter http://www.dansdata.com/cfide.htm this article should explain it to you, basiclly what u are doing is making the Compact Flash card appear to the computer as just another drive, but Dan does talk about the limitations of such a setup as well good luck

_________________Nothing is impossible: Somethings are not worth the effort to achieve.

Another option I was thinking of is using a DOC - Disk On Chip. The MB has a socket for a 32pin flash disk up to 288Mb. But what OS would fit on it ? XP wont (what I am using currently) as it takes up over a gig. I would then not use a HD at all and just run DVD/Divx/mp3 off CD. But then I cant use it as a TV recorder which I might do in the future.

You could use MoviX that boots directly from a CD... It's under HEAVILY development and is planned to have hdd or DOC install-options.... I'm using MoviX for the moment and is very happy with it....

It will even support DHCP and stuff, so you can have a COMPLETLY silent system that streams !!DVD!! svcd, divx and vcd with no problem.... In some version in the future it will also contain the abillity to record from some tv-in card.... =)

The os is currently between 9mb (eMoviX and MoviX) and 22mb for MoviX2...

I think the only issue maybe when you plug & unplug the cables. There may be some static buildup during the time the drive is not plugged in. I myself haven't had any problems yet with my decoupled and ungrounded drives yet.

To be on the safe side you may want ground the drive to some exposed metal with a bare wire.

Maybe I missed something, but if the drive isn't plugged in it obviously isn't spinning, and therefore couldn't be building up static.

Just to be extra super-duper safe you could run a ground wire from your case to the drive. But it's really not necessary.

Heck, nothing in my machine is grounded to the case, in fact the case is MDF. It's through the connections that everything gets grounded to the PSU, and hence to the earth. Even your keyboard and mouse are grounded that way.

Maybe the potential issue is when it's handled by staticky fingers. I don't know how a drive would handle static without being grounded. Does static transfer at all when ungrounded? It must, or else those anti-static bags would be pointless, right?

Yeah, I see the point there. I guess you should handle any hard drive just like any other piece of electronic gear. Always make sure you're grounded, or at least discharged, before touching it. In my wooden case I always make it a point to touch the shell of my PSU first. (which is directly grounded to the ground prong of the power cord)

I have built myself a mini-itx system which is fanless. The only noise is the hard drive which I am looking into ways of silencing.

There is a SilentDrive enclosure which takes a 3.5in drive and then fits into a 5.25in bay. Unfortunately my mini-itx case is not big enough for a 5.25in bay so instead I was thinking - is there a similar product that takes a 2.5in drive and fits into a 3.5in bay ?

If so, could you give me the manufacturer and product name so that I can search for it in the uk.

Copper dust is used for controlling diseases on potatoes, tomatoes, fruits, flowering shrubs and shade trees. It is also optimal silencing material for HDD's. First put your hdd inside a sock (to remove some resonances) then put it between 2 bags of copper dust. Use as thick and heavy and airtight layer of it as possible.

if u have the $$ just geta cf ide converter or two and stick a 3GB cf in it. then u would have a totaly NO MOVING PART pc. soft jbod would be good, riad 0 wouldn't do much with the spped of flash memory.

actualy they can't take type 2. if there is one that can, a pci ramdisk would work. i'd recomend backing it up to a remote HD because if there power goes out, the data goes too. on the other hand using a ups can help.

Copper dust is used for controlling diseases on potatoes, tomatoes, fruits, flowering shrubs and shade trees. It is also optimal silencing material for HDD's. First put your hdd inside a sock (to remove some resonances) then put it between 2 bags of copper dust. Use as thick and heavy and airtight layer of it as possible.

I was thinking about this a few months ago. Have you or anyone else actually had any success with this method? (copper dust in aluminium foil bags, in an a aluminium case?)

I assume the bags would need to be like heavy pads, one on each side of the drive. Does this work? What size of copper grains would work best? What should the bags be made of?

Or would you suggest one large bag of copper dust to hug/cradle the drive?

Also, where might I buy the copper dust? (as this is why I gave up the idea originally)

Graphite has thermal conductivity of 5,7 W/mK and density 2250 kg/m^3. So I guess graphite dust conductivity is 0,5 and density less than sand. It might be necessary to use extra cooling with graphite dust (e.g. aluminum plates, and this leads to resonances and large piles of dust). Any metal would be much better (e.g. copper, 401 W/mK, 8960 kg/m^3). If I just pick up some garbage metal, is there any easy way to dust it?

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